Senet Raises $16M to fund International Expansion

22 September 2020 – Senet, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based software and services platforms that enable the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced it has secured a $16 million funding round led by Fisk Ventures. This new round of funding is a strong endorsement of Senet’s focus on building out the United States’ largest public carrier-grade LoRaWAN network, and supporting global IoT solution deployment by providing coverage and connectivity readiness in 80+ countries.

This funding will be used to:

• Accelerate the deployment and densification of Senet’s LoRaWAN network across the United States to support utility and municipal network builds
• Expand global business development and co-marketing activities with network operators, tower companies and radio access network (RAN) providers
• Invest in awareness programs and business development resources designed to scale the commercial Internet of Things by transitioning users to mission-critical applications.

Senet was launched in 2014 to create a low-cost data network to rapidly deploy, securely connect and manage millions, and ultimately billions, of low-power, low-cost sensors. Senet’s LoRaWAN network supports a variety of municipal, industrial, and enterprise initiatives focused on automation, service delivery and sustainability. 

Included in its growth strategy, Senet is now offering programs for customers looking to transition from developer networks, crowd-sourced hotspot networks, and gateway-based Network Servers.  

“Over the past six years we've seen a wide range of businesses embrace IoT and have learned that creating a bridge between the physical and digital worlds is far more complex than most people realize,” said Bruce Chatterley, CEO at Senet. “Building on our experience and with the support of our investors, we will continue to strive toward delivering ubiquitous low-cost network connectivity, zero-touch device configuration, and device monitoring and management at massive scale in support of our customers’ needs. With a multi-year head start over competing LPWAN technologies and a strong partner ecosystem, we are in a great position to execute the next steps of our long-term strategic vision of helping organizations transform business outcomes, markets, and economies.”

Source: Senet

Actility Raises $25m, Led by Ginko Ventures, KPN, Orange, Swisscom and Foxconn

16 June 2015 – Actility, a leading provider of network solutions and managed information systems for the Internet of Things (IoT) market, today announced it has secured a $25 million funding round led by Ginko Ventures. Ginko Ventures leads a prestigious group of investors including tier-one telcos KPN, Orange, Swisscom and Foxconn, along with the existing investors Fonds Ecotechnologies managed by Bpifrance Investissement, Idinvest Partners, and Truffle Capital.

The investment will allow Actility to accelerate its go-to-market strategy for ThingPark, its open standard IoT network solution; funding its operational resources, building a high level of service and continuing to develop technology partnerships to foster a healthy ecosystem. It follows a recently concluded technology partnership between Actility and Swisscom.

A fully integrated platform for nationwide IoT, Actility’s ThingPark™ is designed to enable IoT services for any market sector, offering ready-to-go IoT connectivity plus a full set of ready-to-sell applications in less than one month. It is a Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) radio network built on the LoRaWAN™ standard, developed and supported by the LoRa™ Alliance.

LoRaWAN networks address the three critical elements required for IoT networks connecting billions of devices: low power, long range, and low cost. ThingPark represents the first end-to-end, LoRaWAN interoperable platform to serve the IoT market for every use case.

“Today’s wireless technologies are not optimized for IoT applications which require sensors to be low power and able to run on a battery with very little maintenance. ThingPark provides the technology to connect both long range and low power sensors over unlicensed ISM band spectrum, allowing low cost and fast roll-out of IoT networks for a wide range of IoT applications,” said Olivier Hersent, Founder, CEO and CTO, Actility. “We are delighted to have secured the backing of such prominent communications industry leaders.”

“With more than 50 Billion devices to be connected by 2020, Cisco believes that new scalable IoT infrastructure and services will become key evolution at every scale, for Telcos, cities and corporate campuses,” said Tony Shakib, Vice-President IoE (Internet of Everything) Vertical Solutions at Cisco.

He added: “We backed LoRaWAN as an open technology for IoT and are excited to see today such industry momentum behind Actility, whom we see as a critical partner to make pervasive IoT infrastructure and services.”

“After the rise of personal connected objects such as consumer wearable devices, we are now witnessing the emergence of a second wave: managed connected objects,” said Hersent. “Managed connected objects are creating a more efficient, more sustainable world. With a ubiquitous and cost-effective IoT network in place, utilities for instance will be able to accelerate their smart-metering plans, to optimize the filling of fuel tanks, to increase the use of renewable energy by dynamically controlling thermostats. We have the technology to achieve a paradigm shift in remote monitoring and management - think of instant fire or leak detection, or prevention of loss of valuable equipment using smart tracking. Ubiquitous IoT will have a huge impact in agriculture and other key sectors of the economy. ThingPark is available now, allowing Telecom operators or municipalities to deploy an IoT network in a month.”

“Foxconn Group is transforming to be a High Technology Solution Provider, including Hardware and Software Value creation. Through this strategic investment, we will expand our current collaboration with Actility to bring its LoRaWAN technology and IoT Platform and Solutions to Taiwan, China, and the rest of Asia," said Fang Ming Lu, Executive Vice President of Foxconn. “We will leverage our strong network to accelerate the development of the IoT ecosystem, as well as promote and integrate Actility’s IoT Solutions for Smart Cities implementation in APAC."

Jasper Snijder, SVP New Business at KPN, said: “As a founding member of the LoRa alliance, we’re proud to partner with Actility and contribute to the development of the Internet-of-Things – the next big thing in the digital landscape.”
Pierre Louette, Orange’s Deputy CEO who is also responsible for Orange Digital Ventures said: “Actility’s connected objects platform is based on bringing together its open service approach with the power of networks. This clearly corresponds to the ambition of Orange Digital Ventures to invest in actors that are developing innovative digital services that contribute to change our customers experience and answer the changing desires and needs of our customers. The Internet of Things is an extremely promising new market and it is important for Orange to support the start-ups and developers who are currently working on services that will become part of our future.”

Jean-Paul de Weck, CEO Swisscom Broadcast: “This is a technology that comes at the right time for operators to accelerate the connection of objects. There is set to be a huge increase in the demand for IoT and we see Actility as a key partner as we expand our activities in this market.”

“Actility’s innovative platform combined with operators’ ability to deliver long term network services nationwide are key to the adoption of IoT applications such as utility metering, street lighting, asset tracking or home security that need resilient and cost effective infrastructure in place for many years,” said Dominique Pitteloud, Managing Partner at Ginko Ventures. “Key to the structuring of the investment round was to bring together a set of strategic investors to collaborate on building the infrastructure for the successful deployment of these new services.”

About Actility
Actility is an industry leader in LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) large scale infrastructure with ThingPark®, its next generation, standard-based IoT communication platform. Actility was founded in 2010 by telecom and technology expert Olivier Hersent. Headquartered in Paris, Actility has offices in Belgium, the UK and Singapore. It is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance: the largest, most powerful standards-based effort to enable the Internet of Things. Please visit www.actility.com for more information.

About the The LoRa Alliance
The LoRa Alliance for Wide Area Networks for the Internet of Things is an open, non-profit association of members that believes the internet of things era is now. The Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) specification is intended for wireless battery operated Things in a regional, national or global network. LoRaWAN targets key IoT requirements including secure bi-directional communication, mobility and localisation services. The mission of the Alliance is to standardise LPWAN to enable IoT, M2M, smart city and industrial applications, to guarantee interoperability between operators in one open global standard. Officially launched at the Mobile World Congress in March 2015, the Alliance has already attracted more than 300 members. LoRa is a trademark of Semtech Corporation. Please visit http://lora-alliance.org for further information.

Source: Actility

Semtech and Actility Partner for Fast Adoption of LoRaWAN™ Technology for IoT

5 March 2015 – Semtech Corp. (Nasdaq: SMTC), a leading supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, today announced that Actility, a leading Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) solution provider, has been selected for deployment by four operators, including Swisscom and NKE Electronics, for LoRaWAN™ deployments.

The Actility ThingPark solution is a complete solution for large scale LPWAN deployments using the LoRaWAN technology, which is now being standardized by the LoRa Alliance. The LoRa Alliance is one of the fast growing alliances with the members focused on collaboratively driving the LoRaWAN™ protocol global success, by sharing knowledge and experience to ensure interoperability among all telecom operators and private networks deploying the technology. The LoRaWAN protocol offers many benefits over competing technologies, such as bi-directionality, security, mobility for asset tracking, and accurate localization.

“Time-to-market is critical for operators that want to capture the IoT opportunity. We have taken a holistic approach with a platform that addresses not only core network management, but also customer enrollment, activation and billing and facilitates purchasing of third party value-added services. We can enable commercial LPWA networks in less than a month,“ said Olivier Hersent, CEO of Actility and secretary of the technical working group of the LoRa Alliance.

“Actility has been a key contributor to the LoRaWAN specification and a sponsor member of the LoRa Alliance,” said Hardy Schmidbauer, Director of Wireless Products and IoT at Semtech. “The Actility solution is a proven solution ready for large-scale network deployments now.”

“La Poste is engaged on a strategy to develop new services leveraging its brand and its strong customer interaction network. We believe that building a LoRaWAN-based network for the Internet of Things could be a key element in this strategy and that Actility could be a key solution provider to help us build this network and launch innovative IoT-based services,” said Rémi Karcher, Project Director at La Poste.

Actility also announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona its technology partnership with Swisscom around LoRaWAN-based networks.

“We foresee a significant increase in demand for low power wide area network-based solutions in the market,” said Gerhard Schedler, Head of M2M at Swisscom. “We feel that Actility serves as an important ecosystem and technology partner as we explore new opportunities to meet the diverse and emerging needs of our customers.”

Following the announcement of the LoRa Alliance, Semtech and Actility have seen a significant increase in available applications and sensors with the LoRaWAN protocol across all key IoT markets with clear focus on smart energy, smart city and smart building applications.

The ThingPark Wireless sensor partner program makes it easy for manufacturers of legacy ISM-band solutions to integrate with the ThingPark Wireless network via LoRaWAN and also benefit from Actility’s online ThingPark Store (http://store.thingpark.com/thingpark-store/).

This online marketplace provides all the tools that allow a partner to install base stations and manage a regional network, using the same tools as much larger national operators.

For Jean-Claude Le Bleis, CEO of NKE Electronics and a key ThingPark Wireless partner, “LoRaWAN is an ideal wireless protocol for industrial and smart building sensors. The dynamic data rate provides the flexibility to run high resolution sensing applications with private networks, or lower resolution monitoring applications, with the same products. We have products ramping to production for temperature, humidity monitoring, and metering with energy harvesting sensors.”

About Actility
Actility is an industry leader in LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) large scale infrastructure with ThingPark®, a new generation standard-based M2M communication platform. Actility’s ThingPark Wireless® network provides long-range coverage for low-power sensors used in SmartCity, SmartBuilding and SmartFactory applications. Actility also provides the ThingPark Cloud which provides big data storage for sensor data and exposes sensor function through an open API allowing developers to provide vertical applications on top of rolled out sensors. To help vendors transform their sensors, Actility provides the ThingPark IoT platform, which includes embedded software solutions and cloud solutions to help devices connect to innovative applications. Actility is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance, one of the largest, most powerful standards-based effort to enable the Internet of Things (IoT). Visit www.actility.com.

About Semtech
Semtech Corporation is a leading supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors for high-end consumer, computing, communications and industrial equipment. Products are designed to benefit the engineering community as well as the global community. The company is dedicated to reducing the impact it, and its products, have on the environment. Internal green programs seek to reduce waste through material and manufacturing control, use of green technology and designing for resource reduction. Semtec has been publicly traded since 1967. For more information, visit www.semtech.com.

Source: Business Wire